by Peter Tonkin
Robin sneezed explosively. ‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘Got him,’ he said. ‘About a mile behind us. Almost invisible. Running without any sort of lights. That’s so illegal and plain bloody dangerous in these waters under these conditions that only a pirate would chance it.’ He turned round with his back to the wind, lowered the binoculars and looked at Katerina. She was a blaze of light. Shafts of brightness streamed from her command and accommodation areas, given extra definition by the sand and spray-filled wind. She was as well-lit as a Christmas tree even before he took her bright running lights into account. Not only that, but what moonshine made it through the scudding overcast and the thick atmosphere beneath it gleamed off her glass superstructure and her white-painted hull. She was in every regard the opposite of the black ship following her. He turned back, dazzled, and it took him a good long time to focus on their dark pursuer once again. ‘God, he looks sinister,’ he said.
‘Right,’ said Robin. ‘Unless you want to hand Tsibekti back to him without a fight, then it’s time for a council of war.’
They all met in Katerina’s palatial lounge. Husan sent Ahmed and Mahmood down. Saiid accompanied them, boasting that he and his cousin could read each other’s minds so he would speak for the captain. Sabet and Tsibekti, clad in flowing and extremely modest – though probably priceless – robes from Anastasia Asov’s wardrobe in the Owner’s Suite, brought Kareem and his silent partner.
Sabet began the discussion. ‘The situation is simple,’ she said. ‘If we really believe that the dhow following us is full of pirates and people being trafficked, then we should call the authorities. Major Ibrahim …’
‘How long would it take the authorities to get to us?’ asked Richard. ‘Would Major Ibrahim drive up to Dahab and get a police launch from there? Or are there suitable vessels nearer at hand?’
‘No!’ cried Tsibekti. ‘The instant Al-Ayn sees an official-looking vessel, he would simply throw the cargo over the side. Better the sharks for them than prison for him.’
‘I’m sorry, Sergeant, but I have to agree with Tsibekti,’ said Richard. ‘She knows the men we are dealing with better than any of us. And they’re the sort of men who allow hundreds and hundreds of refugees to drown each year – either here in the Red Sea or up in the Mediterranean.’
Sabet nodded once, in reluctant agreement. ‘Then what will we do?’ she asked quietly.
‘As Kareem, I think, observed during our stand-off on the Taba road, the best method of defence is attack,’ Richard said, to get discussion under way.
‘We cannot attack the dhow until Nahom and the other prisoners are safe,’ snapped Tsibekti at once.
‘Of course we can,’ answered Richard. ‘We just have to be careful about how much damage we do.’
‘Is there any way,’ wondered Robin, ‘that we could launch an attack that doesn’t look like an attack?’
‘Yes,’ said Richard. ‘Of course there is!’
Ahmed had warned Richard it was going to be tough, even for a fairly experienced diver such as himself. Even so, when the pair of them hit the water, side by side, they were still moving at the better part of ten knots. And, because they didn’t dare go over at the stern where the smugglers might see them, they went over the side and hit the water from a considerable height. Richard lost his grip on the bundle they were carrying and would have been swept away into the rushing black oblivion beneath Katerina’s keel had he not been securely tied to it. As the water pummelled him like the fists of a bare-knuckle boxer and the great bright vision of Katerina’s hull sped away through the water above him, her engines pulsing like hammer blows in his ears, he experienced a moment of utter disorientation. His face mask nearly came off and he risked adjusting it, squashing it brutally against his nose before he grabbed hold of the rope and started to pull himself back towards his dive buddy and the bundle they were carrying, both of which were utterly invisible in the dark water now that Katerina had sped away, where the only glimmer of light came from the face of Richard’s dive computer. He took a glance at it as he pulled himself forward into the inky blackness. He wasn’t interested in the facts it was supplying about dive depth, water temperature, how much air he had left in his tanks or any other information it was displaying. The only thing he was interested in was the countdown in the top right corner. It told him he had five more seconds to get a grip.
Literally.
His gloved knuckles bashed into the bundle. A tiny glimmer beyond it was Ahmed’s dive computer. He felt along the side of the invisible bulk, and found the padded handholds just as the first countdown reached zero. The bundle jerked forward. Richard and Ahmed became submarine shadows of the RIB above them as Katerina towed them forward. But no sooner did she do so, the next carefully calculated countdown began, the line attached to the bundle began to be paid out so the two divers started falling swiftly, silently and invisibly along Katerina’s wake towards the black dhow sailing ever more closely behind her.
Katerina was just coming south of Nuweiba now, heading for Dahab. Her course had taken them past Haqui on the Saudi coast and almost right back across the Gulf to the Egyptian bank once more, the canny Captain Husan making sure they stayed in crowded waters for as long as possible as they plotted, planned and prepared, while their speed had slowed infinitesimally, and the black dhow pursuing them sailed closer and closer to her stern. The long run between Nuweiba and Dahab was likely to be the first section of the Gulf where the shipping would get dangerously sparse, not least because the coast below the waterline was composed almost entirely of reef after reef of ship-killing coral heads. So this was where they had to take action before the murderous smugglers aboard the dhow took action first.
In the lightless abyss of the benighted water, the only senses the sightless divers could rely on were those of feeling and hearing. They could feel the way the water was racing past them with dangerously numbing speed, its effects almost like those of frostbite. But as they felt the rope lengthening, so they began to angle their bodies carefully to take them and the bundle they were hanging on to deeper into the water. Richard’s photographic memory threw up a random picture of Katerina’s radar display as he had last seen it, and his whole right side seemed to flinch as he remembered how close they were to the reefs he had dived in previous years a few miles north of Dahab’s notorious Blue Hole which had claimed so many lives. But at least there was deep water beneath them, for the coral reefs plunged like cliffs from just below the surface to a sea bed the better part of two thousand metres down.
Katerina’s engines faded as she powered on a couple of hundred yards ahead. They were hardly audible above the sound of rushing water in Richard’s ears. But he could hear the increasing throb of the dhow’s massive diesels increasingly clearly as she swept invisibly above them. Like Chinese martial arts masters, they were using their enemy’s strength to overcome him. Had the dhow actually been powered by its ancient sails, they would never have been able to find it. But once they were in the water, those powerful motors became a beacon just as clear as the great pool of brightness spilling out of Katerina. As soon as the buffeting roar passed its crescendo, Richard and Ahmed jerked on the line and started finning upwards. The tow-rope stopped being paid out as their signal registered at the far end like a fish taking a hook. Now, praying that all eyes aboard the dhow would be focused forwards towards Katerina or westwards towards the reefs, Richard did switch on the heavily masked head-torch, which emitted a narrow blade of light, just sufficient to reveal a variable pitch propeller spinning on a shaft protected by an efficient-looking Spurs anti-fouling system and the bottom of a solid-looking rudder. Like the rest of the ship’s original design, the steering system was almost medieval. The rudder was hung from a stern post and would, Richard knew, basically be controlled by a more modern adaptation of the classic two-rope system described by al-Muqaddassi, the Arab ship engineer more than a thousand years earlier. Up, somewhere just above the water, would be two chains or cables r
unning from each side of the rudder in through openings in the transom to servo motors that would tighten or loosen them, swinging the rudder from side to side, depending on whether the captain wished to go to starboard or port. With the equipment they had brought in their bundle – makeshift though it was – Richard reckoned they could affect and maybe even control the dhow’s speed and heading.
With calculated care, they had prepared for the worst-case scenario. So the bundle they had brought with them contained various nets and coils of all-but indestructible polypropylene and Kevlar-strengthened mooring rope and even a length of ancient woven steel cable. With any luck, these would overcome the Spurs system. But the rudder was a different matter. To control that they would have to come to the surface and get at whatever ran in from the rudder through the transom. What they were doing now was dangerous enough, for they could all too easily be seen. If they took the light up to the surface they would be discovered at once.
Unless the dhow’s crew had something much more immediate and important to look at. Richard looked at his dive computer as the second countdown hit zero.
Robin was kneeling on Katerina’s main deck, with only the top of her head showing as she peeked over the stern rail. The whole aft section was designed to fold down flat and form a shelf just above water level to allow the owner and her guests easy access for swimming, boating on the RIB or playing on the vessel’s pair of Dan Rowan custom built Yamaha Rickter two-seater jet skis. But at the moment, it was raised to form a low wall. Over which two long lines reached away into the dangerous darkness aft. Each line was secured around one of the aft docking winches so that it could be paid out and winched in with absolute control and millimetre precision. The man controlling the winch for the line pulling Richard and Ahmed was Mahmood. The man controlling the other one was Saiid, who knelt beside it on one knee, eyes narrow, beard wild, clutching in his right hand the biggest pair of bolt-cutters they could find among the engineers’ equipment.
‘It’s time,’ said Robin tersely, speaking to both of the winchmen and the third man, who was kneeling by her side. Though to be fair, both Sabet and Tsibekti, who were also here, crouched on the solid cover that was closed over the swimming pool, heard her and nodded their agreement.
Kareem the police marksman’s English was more limited than Sabet’s, but he understood better than Tsibekti what the woman with hair the colour of dahab was saying. And what it meant for him, as the next link in the chain, the next element in the plan. The RIB was almost as far back as the divers now, right at the furthest edge of his vision and almost at the end of its tether, as close as humanly possible to the bow wave of the dhow that was pursuing them. The RIB and everything it contained was a big black bundle, hopefully utterly invisible to the watchmen on the dhow – and to those on Katerina as well, except for the circle of white paint immediately above where the rope was tied, on the end facing Kareem. The circle that he had to hit. Ideally with his first shot.
But he was by no means in the best position. He was kneeling where he would have preferred to be lying. His rifle was resting on Katerina’s raised aft wall, not on a steady rock or on his own still hand. The wind was blowing gustily from the north, carrying veils of sand and spray that made the target come and go like a blinking eye. The RIB and the target were by no means stable as they wallowed through the rollers at the far end of their rope. At least, from Kareem’s point of view, it was framed by the white scar of the dhow’s bow wave. But Katerina was nothing like a perfect platform from which to be shooting. She was heaving and pitching, rocking and rolling. Only the weight of the two long lines and what they were dragging through the water gave her any kind of stability at all.
But he had to take the shot. Everyone was relying on him. Especially, it seemed, the three women by whom he was distractingly surrounded, and the men who in turn were relying on them. He breathed out until his lungs felt empty, then slowly began to breathe in. When his chest was at full stretch, he began to breathe out again, steadily and with absolute control, like an opera singer holding a perfect note. As he did so, he began to squeeze his rifle’s trigger, telling himself that only this afternoon he had pulled off an almost miraculous shot to neutralize the Minimi machine gun nest.
The rifle spat, jumping back against Kareem’s shoulder. The casing flew out towards the dahab-haired woman whose husband’s life depended on his hitting that distant, dancing target, like the life of the Eritrean woman’s brother and the reputation of the sergeant’s commanding officer. He blinked. Nothing happened. He gritted his teeth – literally, with the sand grains crunching. He breathed in, calming himself, all too well aware that time was of the essence now – not only was he running late but someone on the dhow would probably have heard the shot. When his lungs were full and his aim steady once more, he began to breathe out again, blanking everything except the next shot and what he had to do to make it.
The rifle spat, jumping back against his shoulder. The casing flew towards the gold haired woman. And the RIB exploded, transformed in an instant from an anonymous, scarcely visible bundle into a raging ball of fire. A column of white flame leaped up and back, seeming to lick right round the dhow’s forecastle head. Then the flames spread across the water. Rearing into an unsteady wall, fanned by the wind. In the instant between these two actions, everyone on the aft deck ducked as Saiid cut the tow-rope with the bolt-cutters. The tow-line whipped away into the night with a crack like a whip. The blazing RIB fell back, surged up over the dhow’s bow wave and wrapped itself around the wooden cutwater, still fiercely ablaze, as the wings of floating fire closed in on her from each side.
Amir the smuggler could hardly believe his one good eye. Never in his long and brutal career had any of his victims made a serious attempt to stand up to him – let alone to fight back. And now the forecastle of his precious dhow was alight. He stood on the bridge, beside the huge helm, gazing down the deck in disbelief, hesitating for an instant, torn between his immediate desire to start slaughtering his prisoners in retribution and the need to get the blaze under some sort of control before it spread to the rigging or the sails and barbecued them all. The skipper of the burning vessel made up his mind for him. ‘Amir,’ he called. ‘You must get the fire under control at once. The spare diesel for the motors is in the forecastle storage holds. If it gets too hot it will explode!’
‘Are your men not trained?’ snarled Amir.
‘Of course! Fire is the one thing we all dread more than running aground on some uncharted coral head. But they need a leader. Find the mate. Stop them from panicking and get them to use the pumps. I must stay here, there is something wrong with the steering and we are beginning to swing to starboard!’
‘So what?’ raged Amir.
‘That is where the reefs lie. Amir, in the name of Allah, you must take charge of manning the pumps and fighting the fire while I try to keep us off the reefs. Have you any idea how many wrecks there are in these waters?’
Amir capitulated and ran towards the inner companionway. The last thing he heard before he exited the bridge was the skipper yelling at the helmsman, ‘Hard over to port, you imbecile, and give me more power! Why is there no more power?’
At the bottom of the first companionway, Amir had a choice. He could run out on to the main deck or he could go down one more level and check the cargo that was sitting in the hold under the guns of his men. Once again, he hesitated. He was an able leader, but he was no seaman. He looked to his own people first, therefore. He ran down the steps and thrust his head into the hold. It seemed as though hundreds of terrified eyes met his one. And many of the most fearful belonged to his men. ‘There is a fire,’ he told them calmly. ‘I am just about to put it out. Stay here, all of you. He fixed the man he trusted most with his most piercing stare. ‘If the cargo make any trouble, shoot them!’ he ordered. Then he raced up on to the deck once more.
The deck was a scene of worrying confusion. Flames were licking up over the forecastle, reaching dangerously cl
ose to the lateen rigged foresail which hung almost as far forward as the forecastle head. Had there been a bowsprit, it would have already been ablaze. The smell of burning was as disorientating as the roaring of the flames. The wind, at least, seemed to be on their side, for it was blowing the worst of the fire southwards towards the vessel whose occupants had started it. Amir caught his breath and looked around. The dhow’s crew were beginning to take action, flinging buckets on the ends of long ropes over the side and pulling up water to pour on the flames. But as often as not, the full buckets coming in were topped with burning fuel, likely to do more harm than good. ‘The pumps,’ he bellowed. ‘Where are the pumps?’
A crewman he recognized as the mate ran over to him. ‘The pump team is just assembling. We have to break out the hoses. Why are we turning to starboard? Why are we slowing? What is going on?’
‘I have no idea. The captain sent me to find you. Can you take control here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. You fight the fire. I will fight our enemies.’
Amir turned on his heel and sprinted back along the deck. He jumped down the steps and swung back into the main hold. His men were all standing now, their guns trained on the restless cargo. Even down here, the air smelt of smoke. They turned towards their leader as he entered. He looked at the forward wall. Behind that flimsy wooden partition was gallon after gallon of fuel, all of it heating up rapidly. ‘You two,’ he said, gesturing to the men he trusted most. ‘Come with me. We’re going to get the missiles and blow these cursed crusaders out of the water.’
Richard released the last of the netting from his bundle and watched as it wrapped itself round the propeller and its shaft. The steel cable was giving the Spurs system a hard time. The propeller was serious trouble for the moment at least, and the dhow was making hardly any headway at all. Katerina too, would be all but hove to a couple of hundred yards ahead if everything was still going to plan. Certainly, there was no pull on the long rope that still tied the black bundle to Katerina’s aft port docking winch. Then, uncoupling the line at last and pulling the bundle after himself, he finned to the surface. Ahmed was up here, working in the flickering moonlight. He had taken from his section of the waterproof bundle the tools he needed to attack the dhow’s rudder. The cables that attached the ancient blade to the rather more modern servos were just within his reach and he had been able, therefore, to wedge the rudder over to the right so that the dhow was swinging slowly but inexorably to the starboard. To the west shore of the Gulf, to the reefs along the coast north of Dahab.